A touch panel, also known as a touch screen or a touch control panel, is widely used as a human-machine interactive input device in various electronic products such as a mobile phone, a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), and a multimedia and public information inquiry system. It is possible for a user to touch the panel with a finger or a dedicated pen so that an electrical signal variation may be generated, to perform identification and selection operations on characters, symbols, menu, etc. displayed in the display device behind the touch panel, thereby realizing the input to the device.
The tempered glass has a smooth and glossy surface, and is provided with a high transmittance, creep resistance, fatigue resistance, friction resisting, good dimensional stability, abrasion resistance, high hardness, the most outstanding flexibility among thermoplastic plastics, and a good electrical insulation performance, and is less affected by temperature, and therefore is generally used for manufacturing a surface film of the touch panel of a mobile phone, for example.
In the prior art, the touch panel is manufactured generally by forming film on the tempered glass, and by exposing using mask and etching processes, etc. However, it is relatively expensive to use the mask; moreover, using the tempered glasses, it is necessary to assemble the small size tempered glasses into a carrier, and do the alignment of the mask and the carrier by positioning an alignment mark on the surface of the carrier to proceed with the exposing. Thus, mass production of the touch panels is difficult since the substrate is relatively smaller than the carrier and the exposure error is significant.